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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26635069">So She Shall Be</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersephoneA06/pseuds/PersephoneA06'>PersephoneA06</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Those Who Falter and Those Who Fall [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Enjolras is a sassy bitch, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fatherhood, French Revolution, Growing Old Together, Javert Needs a Break, Javert as a father, Javert as a husband, Madeleine Era, Mentor/Protégé, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Police Procedural, Poor Life Choices, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Toulon Era, mostly - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:07:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,867</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26635069</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersephoneA06/pseuds/PersephoneA06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Javert has more personal reasons than a small vendetta to go after the convict.</p><p>Starting from Toulon era with the birth of his second child all the way to the revolution and beyond.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Enjolras (Les Misérables)/Original Female Character(s), Javert (Les Misérables)/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Those Who Falter and Those Who Fall [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937704</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. August 1815 - Disappointments</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The water that lashed from the ship bearing below felt like small shards of glass against his face. It was not painful more than it was agitating. Javert could feel against his own palms the coarse blisters of thick wet rope, the mossy waterlogged clothing sticking to overworked muscles just above the surface.<br/>
<br/>
He pushed it from his mind as quickly as it came. These villains brought such punishment on themselves. If it was to be their own misgivings to believe there would be no ill cause without effect, let them suffer. Let them suffer a fraction of what they forced onto the unsuspecting public. That was just.<br/>
<br/>
He continued his patrol once the thought escaped and freed him from the shackles of unwarranted sympathy.<br/>
<br/>
One prisoner eyed Javert with red hot umbrage through the work day. Javert held his gaze with some consternation, remembering this one all too well. He’d years ago been foolish enough to make short work of his sentence and try to escape. Today his sentence was purged, and Javert was tasked with being the bearer of bad news.<br/>
<br/>
The work day passed without incident or fighting – a rare good day that meant tomorrow’s work load would only be as unpleasant in comparison. Not two years ago he requested and was accepted for a promotion from correctional warden to senior officer for the monetary benefits. He was not sallow or thrifty in his necessitating weekly essentials for home, but as a family of two grew to three, a larger house was required. When, on pure accident that Javert chided himself for weeks over, three became four in the making; his superior officers deliberated a demotion or promotion to put his life in less jeopardy than he was routinely used to. One babe was enough stress. Two babes to worry about coming home to while wrestling a makeshift knife out of a prisoner’s hand had taken a noticeable toll on him, as far as the superiors could see. Neither Javert nor the convict was injured, only a scruff of his upper sleeve, but his life was not the only one that needed worrying over.<br/>
<br/>
Javert stiffened his upper lip and allowed the prisoners to pass by in an orderly fashion. His family had no place in the prison walls, in memory or not. He refused to let them be used as a weapon against him.<br/>
<br/>
The scraping of chains was overshadowed by the convicts’ humming doldrums. The end of his baton stopped the march short as he pulled the shifty-eyed piece of work away from his cohorts. From within an interior breast pocket, the paper delivered earlier in the morning. He handed it over with some indignation as the man smiled, his teeth as yellow and vile as the urination that left ammonia clinging to the salty sea air.<br/>
<br/>
“Prisoner 24601, are you in full awareness of what this paper means to you?”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes,” he hummed, practically tearing the letter open. “It means I’m free.”<br/>
<br/>
Javert inwardly scoffed.<br/>
<br/>
“No,” he corrected. “It means you get your yellow ticket of leave. It will be a mark on your honor until you die. You are a dangerous man and a thief.”<br/>
<br/>
“I stole a loaf of bread,” the man countered.<br/>
<br/>
“You robbed a house –”<br/>
<br/>
<em>“I broke a window pane.”</em> A beat passed where Javert, unsure if the man was ready to pounce, rested his hand daringly on the baton he had once again fastened in its holster. “You’ve a young one yourself, the guards speak of her. Would you not do anything in your power to keep her fed? Think with your heart, Monsieur. My sister’s child was close to death, and we were <em>starving –”</em><br/>
<br/>
<em>“You will starve again,”</em> Javert gritted. The hypothetical nearly sent him over the edge. “Unless you learn the meaning of the law.”<br/>
<br/>
“I know the meaning of those nineteen years. We are all slaves of justice. Nineteen years for trying to save one dying baby.”<br/>
<br/>
“Five years for the bread,” Javert countered, feeling his face grow hot as the debacle continued, and he tried very hard to keep his mind firmly at work. “The rest because you attempted escape and injured an officer. Now, 24601, you –”<br/>
<br/>
<em>“My name is Jean Valjean.”</em><br/>
<br/>
“And I’m <em>Javert</em>. Do not forget that. And report to the parole office. I am through with you.”<br/>
<br/>
As the convict hobbled his way up the stone passage, desperate for the parole office, and turned once more, it was Javert’s turn to hold his gaze with unbridled suspicion and vehemence.<br/>
<br/>
That was until a junior officer, a little slip of a mousy boy, rushed up to him, his face flushed with the exertion of running from one end of the prison to the other.<br/>
<br/>
“Monsieur Javert!” he gasped, commanding attention. “Monsieur Javert: a message from home, sir. Your youngest is on its way, Monsieur. Your wife requests your presence.”<br/>
                         _____<br/>
<br/>
Javert found little surprising in life, especially in regard to his own person – who knew Javert better than Javert? – but the level of restraint he carried that kept him from running straight through the prison walls and all the way home surprised him even more than his officers, who urged him out. With an even tone, he informed them of the news and nodded in firm appreciation when they told him to go home. He took a slow and steady stride, squaring his jaw at the leering remarks of caged prisoners. A fist wove tightly and his strides quickened ever so slightly as he passed the criminals whose offenses extended to the abuse of children.<br/>
<br/>
Javert’s horse did not have the same constraint as his master, and at the slightest buck of the harness took off at a breakneck pace. Typically Javert would chide the horse for such reckless abandon, lest his wife or daughter be accompanying him on the animal. Today was an exception. Inwardly he thanked Gymont for the hurry. He made a note to give the horse an apple for his troubles.<br/>
<br/>
When they reached the home front (a humble countryside cottage far enough away from Toulon to be but a distant thought in the day but only a thirty-minute ride at a leisurely pace), Javert disbanded from his faithful horse and nuzzled Gymont’s mane with a crisp leather glove, permitting him a much-needed rest. Brusquely, he stalked off for the front door.<br/>
<br/>
The first familiar face was that of little Noel, sitting among the books she was never permitted to have, but, left unattended, helped herself to. Quickly he rushed to grab her from the floor, noticing with the smallest disdain that the spine of his leatherback Bible had newly furnished teeth marks.<br/>
<br/>
“Nobody approved you to have those,” he chided, knowing she was beyond understanding at only twenty months. Distractedly she reached for his hat, beaded with salt water and sweat and other unsavory solutions. Upon second thought, he did not want her coated in the same mixture and moved toward the hallway to reach her bedroom, pushing her into his other arm. “Where is your mother?”<br/>
<br/>
<em>Where is my son?</em><br/>
<br/>
“Monsieur Javert!”<br/>
<br/>
Affronted with the new voice, Javert put a hand to his daughter’s chest, not yet out of his work headspace and liable to strike in the name of protecting. Relief settled as he recognized the voice to be that of the nanny, Ninette. Having at first objected to her role in the house (many a sleepless night were spent in back and forth arguments on his part that his role as the family patriarch included child rearing, and he needed no woman to take his place), he was at least grateful that his wife was not alone in her most vulnerable time.<br/>
<br/>
Ninette smiled at him. It was a young, relieved smile.<br/>
<br/>
“How is Lucille doing, Mademoiselle?” he asked. With Noel still in his left arm, and still grappling for her father’s attention, he was unsure of entering the room or wasting time to settle her for a long-overdue nap.<br/>
<br/>
“Madame Javert is perfectly fine, as is the baby, Monsieur. Both are very healthy.”<br/>
<br/>
“Am I to believe I missed the birth of the boy?”<br/>
<br/>
“Not a boy, Monsieur. Another beautiful little girl.”<br/>
<br/>
The cheer in the woman’s voice was lost on him. Something unfamiliar but negative seeded itself deeply in his gut. To his left, Noel, having successfully grabbed the hat, was answering Ninette with an enthusiastic<em> “Gah”</em> and a shake of the head. Her little black ponytail, sticking dutifully up, bobbed as her head moved up and down. Javert took the hat away, reeling.<br/>
Another girl. He was outnumbered, three to one.<br/>
<br/>
“This was a very impatient girl,” Ninette joked. Her chuckle was not appreciated. “Three hours, start to finish. The Madame pushed for only twelve minutes. She’s a healthy babe, Monsieur, with very healthy lungs. You’ll be pleased to see she resembles you more.”<br/>
<br/>
“I request to see my wife, Ninette,” he said firmly, a little unsettled that he was so easily undone by the revelation of another daughter.<br/>
<br/>
“Of course, Monsieur. Should I take the little one off your hands?”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes. I expect her to have more careful monitoring. She’s overtired now and does not need to be running about the house without an adult.”<br/>
<br/>
The smile faltered as Noel was passed from one set of arms to the other. Javert felt a new dampness on her yellow day dress where she was fastened in his hold and felt a crimson heat rise in his face. Temperamentally the toddler grasped for her father’s arm as the nanny pulled her away and out of his sight. A high whine and shush were muffled as the furthest door at the end of the hallway closed with a brassy groan.<br/>
<br/>
Experimentally he opened the door that was kept guarded by Ninette in the meantime. The evening sun was shielded by a thick curtain, but he could still make out the silhouette of his wife in their bed, her hand resting on her swollen abdomen. Light traveled sparingly from the crane of her neck to glistening of her raven hair.<br/>
<br/>
He could still smell the phantom drops of blood that he was fortunate enough to escape witness of with this babe.<br/>
<br/>
“Lucille …”<br/>
<br/>
At once he was at her side, close enough to be able to see the tears staining her cheeks and nose with a reddish tint. He felt the intertwining of fingers (thin, soft, jeweled) in his own coarse hands. Her laugh was wrought with tears, her face twisted with joy and other indecipherable emotions.<br/>
<br/>
“We have another daughter,” she sniffled. “She looks like you.”<br/>
<br/>
“As I’ve been told.”<br/>
<br/>
“You must see her, Etienne. She’s as beautiful as Noel.”<br/>
<br/>
One of her hands broke free of his. The sleeve of her nightgown cascading down her arm – rail-thin, the only part of her body to be spared the obstinate swells of the prenatal period – made her seem almost ghostlike as she gestured to the bassinet that went unnoticed on the other side of the bed, nearest to the window. Javert moved toward it. The clunk of his leather boots warned him against disturbing what was perhaps the grumpiest babe he had ever come across.<br/>
<br/>
A fringe of chestnut hair was plain to see with the little light that peered in through the thick curtain. The puffy eyes that had long ago made Noel look so outlandish seemed to have evaded this creature. In its place was an awkwardly large button nose that, based on his own appearance, he knew she would never grow into. The seemingly permanent scowl settled by the sticking out of her bottom lip sealed the deal for him. There was no mistaking whose daughter she was.<br/>
<br/>
Damn the world and all His mistakes, beautiful as they were. Javert was promised a son by the odds of his first child being a girl. He had entertained the notion for eight exhausting months and found comfort, even something akin to pride in the idea.<br/>
<br/>
But she was so <em>beautiful –</em><br/>
<br/>
“Have you christened her yet?” he asked, finding fascination in the softness of her hair. He had dared to reach out and stroke it without waking her.<br/>
<br/>
“I thought the name Eloise Jess Javert fits nicely,” Lucille said. “She looks like an Eloise.”<br/>
<br/>
Javert could not hide his grimace, try as he might. His hand withdrew, although it stayed in the vicinity of the bassinet.<br/>
<br/>
“I had planned the name Jess for if we had a boy,” he reminded her, trying to keep his voice even. He wasn’t sure how many disappointments he could handle in a single day.<br/>
<br/>
“But she is our last. I mean it, Etienne.”<br/>
<br/>
“Lucille –”<br/>
<br/>
<em>“Etienne.”</em> They stared each other down. Though a sliver of light only exposed part of her face, the deathly seriousness of it fed a pit of annoyance to the negative feelings still permeating in his stomach. “Until you can carry and grow the babies, there will be no more. I am tired of being heavy with child.”<br/>
<br/>
“You said that with Noel and look at what happened.”<br/>
<br/>
“Etienne,” she stressed, and he winced. He could hear that she, too, was too tired for an argument. “Revel in what we have. Our daughters are healthy and beautiful.”<br/>
<br/>
“I want a daughter and a son. Two daughters and a son, if need be.”<br/>
<br/>
“You ask too much of me. And I know you’d not say the same should I have borne two sons. Bring the baby over here.”<br/>
<br/>
Rather clumsily, his great brutish hand slipped under the babe’s neck, stirring her into waking. She did not scream as her sister was once wont to do, but a bleary eye opened and she looked up at him, not aware that she was the unintentional point of ire between her parents.<br/>
<br/>
Javert did not want to admit that watching his wife’s face brighten as the babe was put in her arms brought a tremble to the stone slab of his heart. He did not say it aloud, but inwardly he was pleased.<br/>
<br/>
“I tried to be on time,” he found himself saying. “I did not want to miss it.”<br/>
<br/>
“You’re here now,” she said calmly, pleading for him to join them as her hand patted the edge of the bed. “That's all I need.”<br/>
<br/>
He obliged her silent request and sat down, letting his gaze rest on the babe, whose face softened to a more content nature as she fell back into a deep, bottle-fed sleep.<br/>
<br/>
Without conscious thought, his mind drifted to the convict, and the terrible hypothetical that the man proposed that landed him in prison in the first place.<br/>
<br/>
<em>Would you not do anything in your power to keep her fed?</em><br/>
<br/>
He felt as much indignation now as he did then. What a ridiculous suppositious worst case scenario. So long as Javert lived, his children – boy or girl – would always be fed and kept warm in the finest linens he could provide. What he lacked in pure emotional affection, he made up for in giving them everything he was deprived in a flea-bitten, galley rat youth. He shuddered; not wanting to imagine either of his children, defenseless as they were, dressed in the rags he was once accustomed to.<br/>
<br/>
He would give them the sun and moon and string up the stars if they needed it of him.<br/>
<br/>
Eloise Jess Javert so she shall be.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. February 1816 - Morning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A relative calm settled upon the Javert household as Noel gradually became acquainted with the newest source of attention, though she was not quite ready to get used to it. In her limited vocabulary, nothing was said of having to share. It was as heartening to Javert as it was exasperating to occasionally witness his eldest daughter having climbed back in her old crib to slumber with the new babe. He took no pleasure in having to pull her out, but as Lucille insisted, he took it as a responsibility as head of the house and put his foot down on the matter, on the rare occasion where such strictness with the child was a necessity.<br/>
<br/>
He didn’t enjoy it, but it had to be done.<br/>
<br/>
The house was peaceful still. They got as much sleep as they had before the second babe, and adjusted accordingly with Ninette in the house on weekends to assist. After a week Javert returned to work, now as a parole officer. He felt better suited to this role; he had the same responsibilities as his warden days, but with the added benefit of dealing with the reformed scum at a distance. It gave him the freedom to step out of Toulon when he was tasked with home inspections.<br/>
<br/>
Perhaps one day he could reach the role of a real inspector outside of the prison walls.<br/>
<br/>
Time eased the wound of Javert’s disappointment over yet another girl in the house. It did not fully heal, and festered in idle conversation when Lucille would put her foot down against the idea of another baby. But, as the girl grew into her nose and her hair lightened over time to a sunny blonde and she remained the most stoic of babes to her father’s amusement, the internal wound to his pride healed into little more than a flesh-colored scar, still decipherable but just barely.<br/>
<br/>
Obligation to his ward became real fondness as she became a little more human, and whilst her features fleshed out to reveal a real person under the mounds of baby fat and bleary black eyes, she one day looked upon him with his own piercing blue. Just as Noel took after their mother – the thick black hair, narrowed nose, and green eyes set perfectly to an oval face – Eloise, it seemed, was the spitting image of their father.<br/>
<br/>
Javert did sometimes wish he could find an even balance between the two in a son.<br/>
<br/>
Certain days, though, such thoughts fell away. A chilling snow day in February was one such occasion.<br/>
<br/>
The table was set for breakfast as it had routinely become. In the crook of one navy blue uniformed arm, six-month-old Eloise Javert drank her bottle of sugar water with vigor (the choice of drink was a point of contention – her mother read in a catalogue that it would help sooth a teething babe; her father disputed this). Her father, halfway through a beignet and his morning coffee, was alternatively watching her and reading the newspaper.<br/>
<br/>
In the chair to his left, their now two-year-old was living up to the exasperating expectations that had long ago been cautioned of by distant family members, and was using her fork as a makeshift jail against her mother, claiming “I be like Bawbaw.”<br/>
<br/>
He threw an apologetic half-smirk to his wife, who ate her beignets in peace despite the tyranny.<br/>
<br/>
“I expect you will not be so cantankerous with your mother when I go to work,” he said shortly, turning the fork in her hand to its rightful downward position. “Eat your breakfast, silly girl.”<br/>
<br/>
Lucille smiled softly to herself. Another peaceful morning.<br/>
<br/>
Until the “Hmmm” of familiar yet indistinguishable disapproval caught her attention, the sound separated only by a collection of papers that were set down to reveal a forming scowl from her husband.<br/>
<br/>
“Dearest?” she questioned. It was not lost on her how his fingers curled round the little feet of their younger daughter, as though an eagle wrapping its talons fiercely around the nest guarding her sleeping babes.<br/>
<br/>
“Just as I expected,” Javert conceded. “A former convict from Toulon has broken his parole. He was last seen hosted in Bishop Myriel’s care in Bienvenu de Miollis.”<br/>
<br/>
A thin black brow lifted in concern. Javert’s eyes did not leave the article that had captured his attention.<br/>
<br/>
“Were you familiar with him?” she asked guardedly. He nodded.<br/>
<br/>
“His name is Jean Valjean. I was the one unfortunately tasked with granting him the clemency. I should’ve known this would happen, although for it to be so soon is cause for alarm to me. Typically prisoners of his nature wait a year or two before attempting another offense.”<br/>
<br/>
“Do you mean that to say you believe he’s dangerous?”<br/>
<br/>
“Exceedingly so.” His gaze tore from the paper to both his daughters in swift succession, and then landing firmly on his wife. “He was sentenced to five years for armed robbery, and then an additional fourteen for attacking an officer during an escape. The police gave a report that they saw him stealing away with the Bishop’s silver.”<br/>
<br/>
After an unsettling beat, Lucille straightened up, not having realized she was leaning in to grasp onto the details like some sort of prying schoolgirl. Such impropriety was acceptable in the early years of their marriage, but not now, nine years in.<br/>
<br/>
“Well,” she said at last, “thank the heavens he is out of our jurisdiction.”<br/>
<br/>
She attempted to enjoy the calm that had once again settled over their breakfast, but in the midst of cutting into a beignet, she set her eyes once more on her husband, whose eyes (again on the paper) had not eased.<br/>
<br/>
“He <em>is</em> out of our jurisdiction, Etienne,” she said deliberately. “Do not get any ideas.”<br/>
<br/>
“I will not go looking for the convict, if that is what you mean to imply,” he stressed. “However, should he fall into my hands, it will be my duty to see that he does not slip through the grasp of the law.”<br/>
<br/>
As he opened his mouth to continue, the youngest girl began to fuss. Having just weeks ago gained the autonomy to sit up under her own power, Eloise starkly disapproved of being settled in an arm at any given moment, unless it was a bottle feeding from the father she recognized and quickly grew to adore.<br/>
<br/>
“The girls need their father more than Jean Valjean needs the right arm of the law,” Lucille countered.<br/>
<br/>
“Nobody is immune to the law,” he responded with a warning look, trying to keep his tone civil as his elder daughter watched the interaction with rapt attention.<br/>
<br/>
“Justice will come to him when it needs to.”<br/>
<br/>
A dissatisfied hum suffused the heated conversation. Trying to distract, Javert shifted his attention from the fastening of one daughter into her chair to cleaning the corner of the other’s mouth, caked with powder.<br/>
<br/>
“Etienne.”<br/>
<br/>
He challenged Lucille with a stern glare. The other black brow was pushed as high as its counterpart, her lips pursed in their seriousness.<br/>
<br/>
“I want you to promise me,” she stated plainly, leaving no room for more arguing, “that you will not actively pursue this man. He is the responsibility of another township now.”<br/>
<br/>
Squaring his jaw, in his very Javert way, the score was settled. Inwardly he prayed that neither of his girls would grow to be of such conviction. If so, survival would be a complicated state of affairs.<br/>
<br/>
“Then I demand the girls sleep in our bed, this evening and the next.”<br/>
<br/>
“Etienne,” she laughed, and his irritation flared, finding no humor in the stakes, “are you paranoid of a single convict spotted towns away having a personal vendetta against you only? Pardon me for saying that if the man wished to make off with our children, he would have done so already.”<br/>
<br/>
“I will not pardon you for that,” he snapped. "The girls sleep with us tonight."<br/>
<br/>
The conversation fell to the mercy of infantile babble and the clattering of dishes. Noel sat in her seat still, just barely peering over the table’s edge, putting each member of her family in the improvised utensil jail and muttering “Bawbaw job.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. December 1820 - Montreiul-sur-Mer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW: some subtle anti-semitism, as well as a description of a dead body</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The formative years of his daughters’ early childhoods brought two major title changes that Javert saw rightfully fit to receive.<br/>
<br/>
The first, as Noel grew more collected in her speech and her sister followed suit, was the replacement of “Bawbaw” with “Papa.” Eloise skipped the juvenile phrase and mimicked her older sister as the elder Javert girl’s new phrase caught on just when Eloise began learning her own words. With some pleasure, Lucille stayed “Mama” from the beginning for both of her daughters. Inwardly Javert missed the call of “Bawbaw home” from his eldest, but it saved the uncomfortable conversation on the rare occasion a work mate was brought home for dinner.<br/>
<br/>
The second change was that of Parole Officer Javert to Chief Inspector Javert, assigned to the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer. This he took with more dissatisfaction than either his contented wife or absentminded young daughters. The town as he knew it was more densely populated, and had only just been eradicated of a plague five months previously. As chief inspector, he was expected to report to the coroner’s office when the job necessitated it. God forbid he brought any sickness home to his family.<br/>
<br/>
But he was a man of the law to the letter, and the law to the letter necessitated his assistance in Montreuil-sur-Mer. And so their fifth Christmas as a full family began in a carriage, Javert and his wife sitting across from each other as their daughters slumbered, using their legs as pillows. Tenderly Lucille brushed a hand through Noel’s sheen of black hair.<br/>
<br/>
“What time is it, Etienne?”<br/>
<br/>
“Twelve-fifteen,” he noted, putting his pocket watch away to stare once more out the little patch of window that wasn’t thick with frost. He may go stir crazy with the lack of spacial awareness.<br/>
<br/>
“Noel turns seven years old in eight minutes,” Lucille smiled. “Shall I wake her?”<br/>
<br/>
“She will know the date regardless what time you wake her,” he reminded her, not wishing to deal with such noise. “We do not need the both of them awake at this hour.”<br/>
<br/>
He knew very well that Noel was consciously aware of both the impending holiday and her birthday. She had presented them with a wish list (written in illegible red crayon) two parchment sheets long, still under the guise that her birthday coinciding with the holiday meant she may receive more presents this year.<br/>
<br/>
Lucille considered this and allowed her daughter’s rest to continue undisturbed.<br/>
<br/>
“Noel Neriah Javert,” she murmured, the faintest smile threatening to split her face into an adoring grin. Javert watched his wife and hoped the motherly love in her heart would not send her into hysterical weeping. “What an ingenious Christmas gift you turned out to be.”<br/>
<br/>
In his lap, his five-year-old stirred in her sleep. She stretched out one arm with a fatigued groan before clutching her favorite stuffed giraffe in a vice grip. A small hand rubbed tiredly at her eye before going limp again. Risking waking her, Javert let his own hand travel through the honey-brown mane of Eloise’s long hair. He pulled the quilt higher around her, covering the arm that she left exposed to the harsh lick of winter air trapped within the carriage.<br/>
<br/>
His gaze returned to the little sliver of window untouched by frost.<br/>
<br/>
                        _____<br/>
<br/>
Montreuil-sur-Mer was more urban than Javert expected. Whereas Toulon was an even mix of village and city – the cutoff of each area being a dense little marketplace with a town fountain where the local children would sometimes play – this town was all metropolitan. The bakeries that they passed two streets down permeated the air with chocolate and bread smells. There were fountains, yes, but large enough that he decided firmly his children would not partake in the havoc of.<br/>
<br/>
Sturdy brick bedsits that masked the sky from view if one was to stand on the thick slabs of cobblestone below. Red shingled windowpanes in said bedsits that Javert was thankful were closed at such an early hour. It would not bode well for the town’s first glimpse of their newest inspector to be as he and his wife carried their sleeping children into their new home. Fringes of black hair nestled against his neck as gangly, infantile arm wrapped around him for added security. In his free hand was Noel’s trusted companion, Goliath the stuffed white rabbit, whose left ear was half torn from her unenviable teething days.<br/>
<br/>
“Papa,” Noel asked, her voice cracking with the heavy burden of deep sleep. She shivered against him. “Are we at home?”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes, dearest,” he answered, so quietly that it could only befall the ears of the three girls beside him. “But you must sleep still. Five in the morning is unbecoming for a child so young.”<br/>
<br/>
She conceded and burrowed further in his grip, asleep again as the door opened and the family stepped into the house. It was modestly furnished with the fixtures they had given to the carters days earlier. The girls might wake up disappointed to see their exact same home, just with different bearings.<br/>
<br/>
He and Lucille found the girls’ shared room and laid them in their beds, trying to remain uncompromising to their sleep as they dusted away the snowflakes that crusted against the girls’ clothes and hair. The first daybreak of the holiday was approaching through the girls’ bedroom window as the door closed.<br/>
<br/>
“I must report to the station,” he announced. “My shift begins at six o’clock. I will be back at two-thirty.”<br/>
<br/>
A siege of disappointment went unconcealed as Lucille’s hands, at first rested on her hips as if to say ‘Well done, Inspector,’ dropped to her side.<br/>
<br/>
“But Etienne, it’s Christmas … the girls –”<br/>
<br/>
“I have not forgotten what we’ve bought them,” he replied, indifferent to her indignation as he traveled to their bedroom. “Make the decision on your own when the gifts will be opened. I will not be offended.”<br/>
<br/>
“Dearest, it is your daughter’s <em>birthday –”</em><br/>
<br/>
“Buy her a pie from one of the nearby confectioneries. You still have forty francs. We will commemorate once I return.”<br/>
<br/>
He hid his frown of disapproval (matching his wife behind him) behind a façade of burgeoning respectability as he dusted the snow from his coat with a gruff tug. He did not want to go, but the law did not take into account what he may or may not want. In the mirror, his wife’s hands were on her hips once more, this time with no humor or silent congratulations.<br/>
<br/>
“Must it always be like this?” she asked. He turned around, towering over her with unintentional warning.<br/>
<br/>
“It will be so until criminality has ceased and this world is safe for our children.”<br/>
<br/>
                        _____<br/>
<br/>
Javert disliked the pleasantries associated with new assignments, no matter how necessary. The on-sight officers always struck him as bullheaded and lethargic, more attuned to sitting in the guardroom, sucking back on cigars and vials of whiskey than putting forth any actual work to their case files.<br/>
<br/>
He knew this was no different the instant he walked in and saw four such files, familiar in their color and thickness, stacked one right on top of each other on the unattended corner desk. Two older men – he knew to be his superiors, if only be seniority – sat at a round table. In place of tobacco and drink flasks, there was a plate of gingerbread, nearly empty already. Their noses were red from the winter chill that slipped in through the wooden cracks in the foundation.<br/>
<br/>
Inelegantly, Javert cleared his throat, not sure of what to do. Not wishing to partake in the commonalities did not mean he was allowed to stride over and peruse the case files without first greeting the senior officer.<br/>
<br/>
The one closer to him stood up, swaying slightly as old age claimed the frailty of his bones. Something akin to a smile came across his face as he moved to take Javert’s hand in a firm grip.<br/>
<br/>
“Welcome, boy. You must be the new inspector we’ve heard tell about these past weeks,” he said. “Javier, is it?”<br/>
<br/>
“Etienne Javert, Monsieur,” he corrected. “Please just call me Javert.”<br/>
<br/>
He would have none of this “boy” talk. It barely suited him as a young man in his early twenties in Toulon. As a man of forty, it was near damndable, and sent a pierce of annoyance through the slab of stone he was forced to reconcile as a heart.<br/>
<br/>
“I’ll keep it on the record,” the man said. “And I am Senior Inspector Bassett. Allow yourself a rest and some holiday confections before you start.”<br/>
<br/>
Bassett gestured to the empty chair that he previously occupied, but Javert curtly shook his head.<br/>
<br/>
“With respect due to the Monsieur’s offer, I prefer to focus on my day’s work and get home.”<br/>
<br/>
“Ah, you’ve little ones at home that you’d like to return to?”<br/>
<br/>
Another annoyance. He found the interrogation of his private life to be pandering. His wife and children were not anybody else’s business, least of all among the ears of thugs and criminals, yet somehow the officers that surrounded him always found a way to bring them to the surface of conversation.<br/>
<br/>
“Yes,” he said shortly, turning his back to make a move for the files.<br/>
<br/>
“What are you doing here, boy, when you could have a much safer job that would ensure you return to the little ones at the day’s end? A blacksmith, a carpenter?”<br/>
<br/>
“I do what I must,” he said distractedly. His father, he knew, was a blacksmith by day and a swindler by night. He shuddered, remembering. “Are these unfinished cases?”<br/>
<br/>
“All finished except for the one you hold in your hand,” Bassett said. “That one came in as soon as we did.”<br/>
<br/>
With a twinge of mounting irritation, Javert found himself setting the file back on the desk and grabbing the other neglected three, asking, “Where do you file your finished paperwork?”<br/>
<br/>
“We’ve a set of cabinets in one of the back rooms. I’ll have Rene show you.” As Javert began to open one file, and Bassett made his way to the narrow hallway opposite the station’s entrance, the elder man’s voice did not fall on deaf ears as he muttered with great amusement, “It seems we’ve hired a housemaid, Tremblay.”<br/>
<br/>
Before the insult could set in, Javert’s mind first flashed to Ninette, who had to be let go from her duties once the move was announced to the family. A warm glow of remembrance and familiarity fizzled out as the fresh words took hold, and irritation was replaced with silent antagonism. Of all the dastardly things in this world that he may have been, a housemaid was not among them.<br/>
“One of them is enough,” the second man known as Tremblay guffawed. <em>“Rene!</em> Here, boy!”<br/>
<br/>
An actual boy hustled in, no older than nineteen or twenty. Malnutrition was already gnawing away at him, it was very clear. Brown eyes seemed to be sunk deep in their sockets, and sharp cheekbones and a hard roman nose stuck out in the areas that no fat could round out. His hair, thick brown locks, was already thinning from the lack of nutrients. Hardly police material, no matter the badges clinging to the oversized sleeve. Javert had seen this boy in his convicts. He had seen this boy in himself before the fragmented softness was stomped out of him to ensure survival in a prison setting. He would make sure this boy followed.<br/>
<br/>
“Rene, show Inspector Javert where we keep our finished files. And then assign him a work partner.”<br/>
<br/>
“That will not be necessary, Monsieur,” Javert interjected. “I am capable of working by myself.”<br/>
<br/>
“Nonsense. All inspectors are assigned a work partner of their choosing.”<br/>
<br/>
Supposing that was the case, Javert chose not to have one.<br/>
<br/>
With a meek nod that reminded Javert very much of a frightened mouse, Rene beckoned him to follow until they reached a room that felt very much like a cramped storage closet.<br/>
<br/>
“Do they use such a tone with all officers?”<br/>
<br/>
Javert had to know. His voice displayed no room for joking. Rene began to nod before shifting it to a head shake as Javert turned from placing the files in a cabinet.<br/>
<br/>
“Mostly just with me. And some new recruits. They’ll get used to you and stop the teasing.”<br/>
<br/>
“It is unbecoming for grown men.” He studied the boy more studiously, narrowing his eyes as Rene flinched slightly under his gaze. “I will not call you ‘boy,’ and Rene is too informal.”<br/>
<br/>
“You can call me Chopin, Monsieur. That’s my last name. I’ve tried to get Inspector Bassett to use it, but he doesn’t remember.”<br/>
<br/>
He nodded stiffly. Rene led him further down the narrow hallway.<br/>
<br/>
“What is your rank, Monsieur Chopin?”<br/>
<br/>
“Patrol officer, Monsieur. But they mostly assign me to desk duty and paperwork,” he answered, pushing open a door to reveal considerably more light visible through an ice-covered window.<br/>
<br/>
“Why is that?”<br/>
<br/>
“Monsieur Tremblay says I don’t have the stomach for it.”<br/>
<br/>
Neither stomach nor muscle, but Javert felt that was not his place to say. His attention became fixed on a series of cages lining the wall, all of them lined with thick cotton blankets and sheltering –<br/>
<br/>
“Any dog you like, Monsieur,” Rene said behind him. “Except Laurent here. He belongs to Monsieur Tremblay.”<br/>
<br/>
Javert found himself walking past the claimed bloodhound and inspecting the two middle cages with interest. In his youth, he was friends with an old border collie who had a missing eye. Age took away many memories of the dog, as well as its name, but a very young Etienne Javert felt himself grow attached to the ugly stray.<br/>
<br/>
Lucille would claw his eyes out should he bring a dog into the house without warning. She was a cat woman, through and through. In the early days of their marriage, she brought with her the Deveraux family cat, Delphine, a fat orange tabby. He at least appreciated that the animal was very self-reliant by nature. A point of contention in their marriage was the debate of pets, with which the girls at least twice a year (for each birthday and Christmas) begged them to give in and agree.<br/>
<br/>
“Have you a claim on one?” Javert asked, fixing his attention on a little slip of a black cottony dog, lying in its kennel and locking eyes with him.<br/>
<br/>
“No, Monsieur. Patrol officers aren’t permitted to have dogs. Only inspectors.”<br/>
<br/>
He stood up, pointing at the black dog with an equally black glove.<br/>
<br/>
“This one, Chopin.”<br/>
<br/>
The boy rushed forward to undo the lock on the cage, saying, “An excellent choice, Inspector. A bouvier des flandres, just seventeen months old. She’s taken a liking to me, but you should take her.”<br/>
<br/>
The dog pushed to her feet and rushed toward the inspector, jumping up on her back paws to push her front ones against his uniform, slobbering against his glove. With some distaste at the sight, he said, “Am I to take the dog home?”<br/>
<br/>
“Only at your discretion. Most of them sleep here. I feed them when I can, if the other officers forget to.”<br/>
<br/>
Javert eyed the boy again. Chopin, it seemed, would make a good housemaid.<br/>
<br/>
“Is this the one you want? Are you sure?”<br/>
<br/>
“I’m sure.”<br/>
<br/>
“I’ll mark her down in our officer’s log then. Have you a name for her, Monsieur?”<br/>
<br/>
He stared at the dog, at her dewy honey eyes as the fur was pushed back, and she whined at the contact of his cold glove.<br/>
<br/>
“Esther.”<br/>
<br/>
“Jewish, Monsieur?”<br/>
<br/>
He threw Chopin a questioning look, pushing the dog gently to the floor. French Jews were not permitted to be officers, in this town or anywhere. Javert found it to be chauvinistic – he, too, came from a frowned-upon people, and fought the strong arm of the law to claim the title as his own to make something of himself, so why not a Jewish man? – but as a servant to Lady Justice, there was nothing he could say, no matter how uncouth the regulations.<br/>
<br/>
“Please, take no offense, Monsieur,” the boy said. “I myself am Jewish. I recognize the name from our Book of Esther.”<br/>
<br/>
“It also means ‘star,’” Javert clipped. He remembered it from the hundreds of names that Lucille threw out in day to day conversation when their family of two was yet to become three. Esther Javert did not roll off the tongue, but he kept the name stored in the back of his mind.<br/>
<br/>
A terrible but not unrealistic thought passed through his mind, posing the possibility that Chopin was relegated to desk work not due to a weak stomach, but due to underlying societal prejudice just under the surface.<br/>
<br/>
In any case, it would not go unheard of. Javert had a busy work day ahead, and questioned with some unease if he really would make it home by 2:30 as promised.<br/>
<br/>
                        _____<br/>
<br/>
Chopin visibly blanched when Javert made the request to Bassett to bring both him and the dog on the latest case file – with some choice words that got started the Spartan ritual of whoever shouted the loudest won the argument. Javert did not look to be a man of many emotions, least of all ones that roused such anger to cause shouting.<br/>
<br/>
Whatever the case, Chopin and Javert walked from the station, the latter’s voice briefly hoarse as the red took its time to drain from his usually sun-kissed features. The winter breeze tinted the corners of Chopin’s sharp features as well.<br/>
<br/>
“Where are we going?” he asked at last. For some minutes there had been an uncomfortable silence as Javert mounted his horse, came to realize that Chopin did not have one of his own, and deliberated (with annoyance that was not directed at Chopin, but got thrown in the boy’s face anyway) until he decided that Chopin should walk beside him with the dog.<br/>
<br/>
“The morgue,” Javert answered. The ground was snowy and Gymont, several years experienced, struggled still through the patches of ice. It was difficult to see the road through the sheen of white all over, but Chopin rested a hand against the horse to keep him from straying onto the sidewalk.<br/>
<br/>
“The morgue?” Chopin repeated. The quiver was as evident as the crack in his voice. Javert had half a mind to tell him to budge up, but propriety held him back. He was in no mood for more arguing.<br/>
<br/>
The case was an accidental homicide, but a killing occurred nonetheless. An elderly woman with a fogged mind, having mistaken her husband for an intruder, shot him through the head. A neighbor filed a complaint in the early morning hours to the police, who brought the body into the morgue but left the woman at home as they deliberated the next course of action. Javert found this appalling.<br/>
It was a shame this had to be the boy’s first assignment, on Christmas no less. He held little regard for Christmas, only that it coincided with his daughter’s birth. But as he had half a mind, he was aware that Christmas to the more naïve was a day in which no harm or misfortune was to befall on any person in the world. He could not shield Chopin from falsehoods, nor did he feel he had to. <br/>
When they reached the morgue, Javert descended from the horse, fixing him with a gentle pat on the muzzle. Across the street, most peculiarly, was the aforementioned bakery he had urged Lucille to look into.<br/>
<br/>
His mind traveled to Noel. He wondered if Lucille would remember to pick up a pie or if he should attend to it after his shift.<br/>
<br/>
The morgue was unsettlingly cold, and the mixture of unendingly pleasant smells felt like a series of rapid punches as Javert – and, hesitating in the door, Chopin and the dog – stepped in, pulling out a kerchief from an inner breast pocket and covering his nose for good measure. The cold was already beginning to make him sniffle, but the decay of flesh and embalming fluids had been out of his jurisdiction for so long that he had fallen to its mercy.<br/>
<br/>
The walls, chilled as ice, were cement blocks, except the one wall furthest from the door. He knew this was where the bodies were stored in between the autopsy reports and cremation. <br/>
<br/>
The groan of the entryway alerted a man to make his appearance known. An apron was tied tightly around a lanky frame. A thick mane of curly black hair extended into bushy sideburns that enveloped the man’s cheeks. <br/>
<br/>
The man smiled sadly at the pair, looking as though years of this everyday occurrence marred the ability to keep up appearances.<br/>
<br/>
“Are you the new police inspector?” he greeted. His voice was as gentle as the hand that Javert enveloped in his own. “I am the town’s mortician, Doctor Bryan Efron.”<br/>
<br/>
“Inspector Javert. Greetings, Monsieur.”<br/>
<br/>
“Good morning, Monsieur Javert, and welcome. I do wish we could have met under better circumstances.”<br/>
<br/>
His gaze traveled to the young man behind the burly inspector, and his face softened to one of concern.<br/>
<br/>
“Chopin, my dear boy, why are you here as well?”<br/>
<br/>
“Inspector …” He caught his voice before it could crack again, and cleared it. “Inspector Javert told me to come with him, since it’s a patrol officer’s duty to be in town.”<br/>
<br/>
“A fine day for it,” he said sardonically, with a thick black brow lifting to accentuate his point. Turning on his heel, he led the unspoken-of guest on the other side of the room. Only the silhouette was visible under the thick white sheet, stained with various fluids.<br/>
<br/>
“The file detailed a man in his seventies,” Javert said. “Sparse white hair, grey eyes. Five-foot-five.”<br/>
<br/>
The doctor nodded, although it was easy to tell it was not of enthusiastic recognition.<br/>
<br/>
“Yes, that’s him,” he said. Taking his time to lift the sheet, he eyed Chopin – and his lightening color – carefully. “We will not have a repeat of last time, I hope, Chopin?”<br/>
<br/>
“N – No, Monsieur.”<br/>
<br/>
“What is the last time with which you speak?” Javert inquired, wishing to get on with it. His eyes traveled to his young companion, who looked half-ready to fall over as the dog jumped up to place her paws on his chest.<br/>
<br/>
“I fainted, Monsi – ahhh …”<br/>
<br/>
Javert’s head snapped to attention where the boy’s words fell short. It was always grim to first look upon a corpse. The eyes always stayed open, and would have to be held down with stones – none of the fanciful notions of a beautiful, eternal slumber. The eyes, though devoid of life, stared at the ceiling as though glued to the eyes of Death.<br/>
<br/>
Leaning closer, conscious of the smell, Javert studied a gaping red wound at the peculiar corner between the forehead and the temple. He hummed. The angle left no room for doubt.<br/>
<br/>
“His wife did shoot him,” Javert determined. “If he had wanted to kill himself, he would not do so at such an odd angle that would only strike his brain.”<br/>
<br/>
“I’ve also determined that she was not at a close enough distance to properly see him,” Efron included. “At a close distance, the bullet would have had more momentum to pierce through him. The bullet I found was still lodged in the top of his cranium. She was several feet away, most likely on the other side of a darkened room.”<br/>
<br/>
“The report was that he was found by officers in the front room.”<br/>
<br/>
A groaning sound made Javert turn. Chopin’s face was blanched, and he rested his hands upon his knees, doubled over. Raising his head, Javert muttered a silent prayer that either the town’s police was limited in number or more competent than the hand he’d been dealt thus far. He could put up with little more.<br/>
<br/>
“If you’re going to be sick, have some courtesy for the man’s workplace and go outside,” he clipped. All too quick to agree, Chopin stumbled from the morgue with the dog at his heel, putting a hand over his mouth.<br/>
<br/>
“Weak stomach,” Efron conceded, although his tone was a pitying one and not mocking as Javert had come to expect from the senior inspectors.<br/>
<br/>
                         _____<br/>
<br/>
“Does it ever get any easier?”<br/>
<br/>
“Clarify.”<br/>
<br/>
The remainder of the visit at the morgue lasted only a few minutes. When Javert stepped out to see his companion hunched over a trail of orange bile that was already frosting from the winter air and clutching his chest, he only jerked his head in a way to signify Chopin to follow him to the deceased man’s house. Without conscious thought, Javert elected to walk alongside his horse and Chopin rather than leave him to catch up.<br/>
<br/>
“Does looking at dead bodies ever get easier to deal with?” Chopin asked. Had Javert not known better, he would’ve said there was irritation in the way the words clipped together.<br/>
<br/>
“No, it does not.” He was not going to lie. It would only hurt worse when such a promise was not delivered. “Only more manageable.”<br/>
<br/>
“Perhaps I’m not meant for policing,” he conceded, both to himself and the Inspector, who looked at him only briefly. “My mother wanted me to be a barber.”<br/>
<br/>
“You’ve not man enough to be an officer, but a barber sees just as much bloodshed in a given day if you aren’t at your best,” Javert said carefully. “I will make a man of you yet.”<br/>
<br/>
Inwardly, he hoped Chopin found as much threat in this as he found comfort. It would be of service to the town to have more than one half-competent officer that cared to do work, and Chopin was not a dull young man, only weak-willed and a little cowardly. With some discipline, Javert could see him climbing the ranks, though at a slower pace than he himself had once done.<br/>
<br/>
No more conversation passed between the two men – only the crunching of fresh snow under leather boots and the panting of a happy dog (whom, Javert noted with interest, walked in a subtle zig-zag when she was most excited) – until after the old woman was apprehended, muttering nonsensical notions to herself on the whereabouts of her husband. Javert, once again back on his horse and accustomed to the ravings of a lunatic, ignored it, though Chopin found it quite difficult as he walked alongside her.<br/>
<br/>
“Do <em>not</em> loosen her cuffs,” Javert barked.<br/>
<br/>
“How did you know I was going to?”<br/>
<br/>
“Parents and officers have trained eyes in the back of their head. As I am both, I am well in tune to the inner workings of a weak mind.”<br/>
<br/>
Chopin found some offense in that, but found a greater interest in the mention of the Inspector’s private life. Such a man of little emotions did not seem capable of maintaining a family, though with the way he handled his work detail, Inspector Javert looked like one to take the role as man of the house incredibly seriously.<br/>
<br/>
He wondered if there were any girls. Any girls close to his age. He shuddered, pitying the boy who would one day pluck up the courage to ask a girl out to dinner, only to have the door answered by Inspector Javert, the pretty girl’s protective father.<br/>
<br/>
The cuffs remained tight on the old woman’s wrists, despite her confused protests against it.<br/>
                         _____<br/>
The rest of the shift passed in the manner that Javert expected. Though befuddled that the seemingly harmless old woman (harmless? She killed a man – a danger to herself and others) was in cuffs, the senior inspectors nonetheless put her in a holding cell, before returning to their game of <em>Vingt-Un.</em> Javert wrote up an incident report for the slight of Chopin emptying the contents of his stomach at the morgue. A letter addressing the case was written to the Prefecture of Justice, and Javert was surprised at the proficiency in Chopin’s words, though there were still some glaring issues (“Rewrite it, and refrain from addressing the Prefect as ‘dear’”). Unbecoming of himself, though, two-thirty on the dot found Javert gone.<br/>
<br/>
The early sundown that shrouded the town in artificial darkness nearly blackened the inside of the house. Lucille had thought to light the triads of candles that were perched on the walls, one in each room, untouched even before the family’s arrival. Also untouched was the feeble Christmas tree Lucille insisted on bringing with them. Under it were the unwrapped presents that had sat in one corner of the carriage, barely scuffed by Eloise’s roving feet in her sleep hours earlier.<br/>
<br/>
A Bundt cake, marbled with chocolate, sat in the kitchen on one of Lucille’s trays she only brought out for high-class parties. Though he detested them and found most of her upper-class twit family members to all be bores (the ones who arranged their marriage, at least, and hounded them endlessly about children), he would not deny free pastries when she made them available.<br/>
<br/>
For such talk of holiday festivities, the house was unusually quiet. Moving from the kitchen, he peered inside the girls’ room. At first believing them not to have moved at all since he left, and inwardly ready to chide his wife for leaving them alone while she went to the bakery, he realized they had moved, for now they were on different sides of the bed than they were originally positioned.<br/>
<br/>
Taking a tentative step forward, Javert knelt at the bed and prodded his younger girl’s shoulder as softly as he could.<br/>
<br/>
“Eloise,” he spoke softly. “Eloise, my girl, have you left the house today?”<br/>
<br/>
A blue eye just barely made itself visible. When she recognized the face, it closed again. She nodded blearily, pushing her face into the pillow.<br/>
<br/>
“Mama took us to buy a cake for Noel,” she said in a high yawn, stretching her limbs as though it was still early morning. “She said we mustn’t touch it ‘til you got back.”<br/>
<br/>
“Would you and Noel like to open your presents?”<br/>
<br/>
At the contact of his hand resting on her shoulder, she said a “Hmph” and pushed her arms under the pillow, contented to the company of her dreams.<br/>
<br/>
Perplexed, he stood to attention, then turned on his heel. Though he and Lucille spent many a tireless night teaching the girls manners for guests outside the household, benevolence escaped them when they were in need of sleep.<br/>
<br/>
Lucille, he found, was also asleep. Her back was turned to him, causing him to frown. She was on his side of the bed, hair askew from what he could only guess to be hours in the same unmoved position. Tentatively, he moved to her side, prodding her as lightly as he did with their daughter.<br/>
<br/>
“Lucille?” he murmured. “It is Christmas still. Shall we wake the girls?”<br/>
<br/>
With a sharp yawn that reminded Javert of the dog on his patrol, Lucille nodded and began to sit up, keeping her eyes closed.<br/>
<br/>
Though a fanciful notion, Javert was well trained from years of childish imagination pervading his home to wonder what he and his wife might be as dogs. The notion was first brought up some days ago in a heated debate between his two girls at the breakfast table. While he did not participate, the girls grew the conversation to such a vigorous and high-pitched upsurge that he banished them both from the table, threatening to carry them both under his arms to their rooms. The debate, while not at the forefront of his mind, had not escaped him.<br/>
<br/>
A bulldog, he decided, yielding that Eloise was right in her argument. He would be a bulldog, Lucille a great black poodle, and Eloise and Noel their mixed breeds. The thought stirred something in the swell of his chest. Unsmiling he was a bulldog; laughing, which was rare and terrible outside the home, he was a tiger.<br/>
<br/>
Resting now, though, on a peaceful expression as he watched his wife stretch her arms to the heavens and pop her back, he was a dog at ease. Thinking on it, he closed their door and dug around in their dressers for more easygoing attire while Lucille took her time to awake.<br/>
<br/>
“What time is it?” she asked groggily.<br/>
<br/>
“Three o’clock,” he answered as he pulled out a spare night shirt. “When were you able to go to the bakery?”<br/>
<br/>
“Noon. I have twenty francs left.”<br/>
<br/>
Shifting out of his coat, Javert turned to her, incredulous.<br/>
<br/>
“A single Bundt cake was priced for twenty francs? And you bought it?”<br/>
<br/>
“Six for the cake,” she stressed, and he knew by her tone not to press the issue further while she was still so tired. “Seven for the carriage ride there and back.”<br/>
<br/>
He nodded, adding a note to make Gymont more accessible for the family in the winter season.<br/>
<br/>
Though the holiday got off to a late start, it did not deter the little girls from tearing into their two respective dollhouses with the effortless enthusiasm of childhood joy. He and Lucille received many rounds of thanks, as well as a bottle of perfume, a new jewelry box, a shaving kit, and an expensive-looking tobacco pipe.<br/>
<br/>
It was a very satisfying late Christmas. It was at least better than the Christmases in which the girls insisted on waking them at 4 AM to open presents before his early morning assignments.<br/>
<br/>
The late evening found the four of them sleeping in the same bed, stomachs full of cake and last-minute pecking duck, their lungs tired from laughing and conversing and singing.<br/>
<br/>
Not a bad way to end the first day in town.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. March 1822 - Mischief</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It did not take long for the imposing, barrel-chested Inspector to gain something of a reputation for being unyielding and swift in the line of duty. News of the old woman’s arrest on Christmas morning of 1820 drew a lot of gossip, but most of it concerned not the delusional old woman nor her unfortunate husband, but the cold policeman who shackled her and saw her to court to answer for the crime she unknowingly committed. From then on, though the town gained a begrudged respect for his tireless services, crime was rarely reported for fear that the ruthless Inspector would be called to the scene.<br/><br/>That did not mean it was easy to maintain respect or a straight face when, during the morning patrol, there occasionally stood behind him one or two small girls, barely at hip-height, mimicking his militant gait.<br/><br/>What made it even funnier to the odd townsperson who happened to witness it was that the Inspector seemed to have no idea for some time that his daughters would follow him. It was only when he would reach one end of the town, having walked from the other, and then turned around would he find one or both of his girls in a giggling heap.<br/><br/>This, the townspeople thought, was the funniest of all. His face reddening like a tomato, he would refrain in a baritone growl their full names to mark the seriousness of their actions (though that only happened if they were alone; “Noel Neriah Javert, Eloise Jess Javert” seemed too long a title to be threatening when they double teamed against him). If he was in a particularly bad mood, he would grab them by the shoulders of their dresses and march them across town, muttering about “that mother of yours; what ever can she do that is more important than watching you? Just wait until she hears what you’ve done, again.” In a better mood, he would grasp their hands and hoist them onto Gymont, racing across town to get them home.<br/><br/>Such incidents did not bode well for his mounting respectability, nor for his intentions on keeping work and home separate.<br/><br/>Javert walked a steady pace, head turned to the colored rooftops. These actions left him at a perplexing crossroad. He had already wasted so much time escorting the girls back home. The police system would reform not in spite of him, but because of him, but that could only happen when he was fully devoted to the work and not busy disciplining the girls.<br/><br/>What course of action had he taken that children under the Javert name dared to defy rules and sneak out of the house? Had he spoiled them too much, or, more dastardly, neglected them in place of his work?<br/><br/>Lucille seemed to find the whole ordeal rather amusing, though he vaguely appreciated the harsh tone with which she reprimanded them and swatted them on the backside to usher them back in the house. He did not need another source of conflict driven into the foundations of their marriage. They were already on opposing sides when she brought up the concept of her applying for a seamstress position. They did well enough as a family of four on his salary, he reasoned, but she did not want to spend the time before her autumn years stuck in a house day in and day out.<br/><br/>If their behavior did not turn the tide soon, he would have to hunt down a nanny or enroll them the local school. He did not know which was more frightening or expensive.<br/><br/>A stifled giggle behind his back forced him to spin around. Two large green eyes gleamed in amusement with which he could not share.<br/><br/><em>“Noel Neriah Javert!”</em> he said sharply. It only stirred his irritation further that she seemed not to be intimidated at all, but trying hard not to laugh. “Go home, girl. You will not hear the end of this from me.”<br/><br/>“But Papa –”<br/><br/>“I do not know who <em>your</em> father is, but no girl of mine puts herself in the way of such dangerous delinquent behavior. Now go!”<br/><br/>With a small harrumph, the girl turned on her heel and skipped away under the hawk-eye of her irritable father. He always seemed to be more cross when she attempted to follow him than Eloise. This, she found, was unfair, as Eloise, though sneakier and less likely to be caught, snuck out to follow him far more often than Noel did.<br/><br/>He had threatened her more than once lately with supplying them a nanny – one he would be sure would enforce punishments for sneaking out. She shuddered. Physical punishment from her parents never went beyond a rough arm grab or a swat to the backside.<br/><br/>Fortunately for her on that particular day, her father had gotten far enough that he would not see her make a break into the police station, but was a short enough distance from home that he decided not to escort her.<br/><br/>“Noel Javert,” Inspector Tremblay said, “does your father know you’re here?”<br/><br/>“No, but let’s keep it that way.”<br/><br/>She liked Inspector Tremblay. He had a burly white beard that Papa said was unbecoming for an officer, and that he looked more like a chain gang convict, but he reminded her of Saint Nicholas, the fabled holiday hero who arrived on her birthday every year. Tremblay was good about sneaking mint chocolates for her out of her father’s watchful eye.<br/><br/>“Where is your sister, girl?”<br/><br/>Officer Chopin, though still more lenient and good-natured than his mentor, did not enjoy hiding from Inspector Javert that his daughters were as mischievous as any he’d ever seen. In the months since Inspector Bassett passed, and Inspector Javert gained the title of Senior Inspector and his workload increased, his children ran amok as though they had no mother at all. More often than not, they gallivanted around the police station, knowing how to coax some candy or a centime or two out of him or Inspector Tremblay. It grated on his nerves.<br/><br/>“She’s with Mama, doing the laundry,” Noel answered.<br/><br/>Still, the mischievous, tooth-missing grin could run circles around even the hardest of hearts. If the girl grew to be a swindler, she would be a great one of little effort.<br/><br/>“Run home, Noel,” Chopin said. He did not bother with giving her any more attention when he had actual work to attend to. “I know your father told you to and I’m expecting your mother will run in any minute to collect you. Best if you present yourself at home than she comes here.”<br/><br/>“Mmm … no,” she decided.<br/><br/>Chopin rolled his eyes as the Inspector gave a light chuckle.<br/><br/>“It does little help to encourage such raucous behavior, Inspector Tremblay,” he said as he stood. A sealed letter found its way to the send-out slot. “How Inspector Javert lets you get away with such behavior is beyond me … ah, there he is. Perhaps I should ask him.”<br/><br/>Whether the look on the Inspector’s face was one of usual introspection or a determination to catch his eldest charge, Chopin did not know. What he did know, though, was as soon as he turned around, the girl was gone. He caught the briefest snippet of a lilac dress hem and a small chelsea boot slithering behind his desk. With a sigh, he marched over to the desk and stared down at the child, who stared up at him with the correct expectation that he would not divulge her hideout.<br/><br/>“This is the last time, girl,” he said sternly, unsure of himself.<br/><br/>Javert walked in as Chopin sat down.<br/><br/>The question needn’t be asked to be understood. The two men shared a glance, one more amused than the other.<br/><br/>“Noel or Eloise?” Chopin asked to throw him off. “Or both this time?”<br/><br/>“Noel,” he confirmed. “Has she been here?”<br/><br/>“Had she been here, I would not be asking which of the girls it was, would I, Inspector?”<br/><br/>Noel pressed her hands over her mouth, stifling a laugh. Chopin always had the funniest remarks to throw her father off her scent, though her father never appreciated them. This time he was at the young man about being the senior officer and demanding the respect of one.<br/><br/>“I will certainly respect you as my superior, Inspector; do not have a shadow of a doubt about that. I should respect you more as a person if you kept your daughters in line.”<br/><br/>“It is a two-person job. Do not presume to tell me how to parent.”<br/><br/>“I would never <em>dare</em>. I only observe, Monsieur Inspector.”<br/><br/>The clunking of boots against the ground drew nearer and made Noel freeze. This was the part she enjoyed most - the waiting period of either success or getting caught. It gave her a great feeling of exhilaration that her mother once called “adrenaline rush.” Her father leaned forward against the desk; she could tell in the way that the desk creaked under the weight of his hands and Chopin sat back in his seat, looking affronted.<br/><br/>“You are a parole officer by my authority only. You will mark me, young man, that it is <em>not</em> your jurisdiction to inspect.”<br/><br/>“Inspector Javert,” Inspector Tremblay interjected, and Noel heard the scraping of wood against wood; she perceived this as the chair against the floor. “Before it slips my mind again, I should have to report to you - Esther has been looking less herself than usual. I thought it was only right as her owner that you should want to know and take a look at her.”<br/><br/>The floor creaked under the weight of her father standing at his full, grand height, for when he spoke again, it was much further than it had been moments ago.<br/><br/>“Pardon, Senior Inspector. My concern at the moment lies with my daughter, not my dog.”<br/><br/>“She’s a very intelligent girl, Monsieur; she knows her way around. I’m sure she’s running home as we speak, but poor Esther has been throwing up all morning. Her diet has not been outside of the norm, so it is cause for concern for me as the one who feeds the animals …”<br/><br/>Their voices drifted as they descended further down the hallway. As soon as a door closed, Chopin leapt from his seat and allowed the girl to make a run for the front door. He followed her, not intent on letting the escape go without consequence.<br/><br/>“Hey!” he exclaimed, grabbing her arm just as she got both feet out the door. She whipped around, still giggling. “Girl, listen to me good. Your father does <em>not</em> need to be dealing with you on his trail when there is real and dangerous work to be done, understand?”<br/><br/>“I was just playing, Monsieur Chopin,” she laughed, though it was cut short as she tried to wriggle free from his harsh grip.<br/><br/>“One of these days you may end up playing with the wrong sort, and your father will get into trouble with his job - or worse yet, he could end up seriously injured or killed having to save your mischievous hide from someone less benevolent who might get to you first.”<br/><br/>He hit the sore spot he was aiming for. The smile faltered, the mindless giggling cut short. Certainly the mental image of her beloved father in a grievous state sent the fear of god in her.<br/><br/>“I - I’m …”<br/><br/>“Go home, child. Spare yourself further punishment and your parents more heartache. They worry themselves into exhaustion over you and that sister of yours.”<br/><br/>The closing of the station door, typically enunciated by a proud simper and the crunching of gravel under little boots, was now deafening in its finality. Though she knew her father could very well burst through the door at any minute, no doubt in hot pursuit of her, Noel stayed rooted to the spot. A very dour image stayed still in her mind of the little scars that she knew aligned his back and arms from many years of his line of work. Remembering a singular bullet wound that marred his stomach made her wince.<br/><br/>To think that she or her sister could ever be the reason for one existing was unacceptable.<br/><br/>The turning of her heel was with less vigor than she had used in previous cat and mouse games. Noel walked in a sort of saunter. For the first time in nearly nine years of living, the girl felt the sting of embarrassment like a slap in the face.<br/><br/>This unpleasant feeling was not replaced by the fear that encompassed her body in a cold grip when she saw her mother - eyes blazing and with her sister in tow - and promptly made a run for it. Instead, as she sat hours later on the couch in the parlor, head bowed in shame as both Mama and Papa towered over her in formidable silence before launching into yet another diatribe about the happenings that will not be tolerated so long as she bore his name, the mixture of agitation and humiliation overwhelmed the tears that fell down her cheeks in fat droplets.<br/><br/>Eloise, for her part quiet and disguising her amusement behind a posture of innocent toy brick construction, did not get off so easy. Doling out the punishments, in addition to the loss of the right to play with Gymont (“Since you seem so confident in your navigating,” Mama announced, “you will both be walking, accompanied, to your desired destinations for the next month. On our time”), Papa announced that, to curb the dangers of the girls having so much of the day to themselves, they would be attending school the following autumn. No protestations, no whining. It was settled.<br/><br/>                    _____<br/><br/>Three weeks into the girls’ punishment put the house in a state of temporary truce. Though Eloise, tyrant as she was, protested against the loss of her favorite transportation, Noel accepted the conditions as a form of surrender, and urged her younger sister to relent and accept the fates given to them. Somehow her young mind, having just learned of the word conscience, knew resisting would make things worse.<br/><br/>In any case, Noel did not want to end up like the criminals who resisted orders or arrest that her father might tell her and Eloise about. It was a rare occurrence; the last one was an ill-attempted bedtime story that ended up with Eloise spending two nights in her parents’ bed.<br/><br/>Mama put them to bed from then on. As was the case on the particular night when their parents were unwitting hosts for a dinner party for the new mayor. The girls were ushered to bed before the arrival of either the mayor or the small gathering of the town’s police force. Eight o’clock saw Noel brushing her hair at the vanity as Mama allowed Eloise to rest her head in her lap, teary-eyed from a day-long ear infection that ceased to let her rest.<br/><br/>“I’d like to meet the mayor,” Eloise was complaining. “I’ll be on my bestest behavior, Mama.”<br/><br/>“Best behavior, Eloise,” she said softly. “And some parties are more suited to adults. There will be influences there that we don’t need for you to be around - alcohol and such.”<br/><br/>“Don’t tell her that, Mama,” Noel warned mid-brush. “She’ll sneak into the party.”<br/><br/>“Why is Papa throwing a party if he doesn’t want people over? That seems counter … counterintit …”<br/><br/>“Counter-intuitive?”<br/><br/>Eloise whined, nodding into her mother’s dress. Just their luck that their youngest comes down with an ear infection the night of the first dinner party they’d hosted in years. Neither warm oil nor extra rest had soothed her. No, it was right of her to stay in the room. The clinking of ice in half-filled champagne flutes and raucous laughter of five grown men would only serve to pain her more, to which Lucille could not bear to stand witness.<br/><br/>“Try to rest, dearest,” she urged. “Your favorite doll is sewn back together and can keep you company.”<br/><br/>Noel turned her nose up at this, the way she’d often seen her father do when presented with people he doesn’t want to be around. Eloise was nearly seven; much too old for dolls.<br/><br/>The promise of the companion seemed to stir some spirit, though. Eloise allowed her mother to put her in the bed, doll in her arm and wet rag on her forehead.<br/><br/>“Noel, darling, you are not exempt from bedtime. Finish brushing your hair and then into bed so that I may tuck you in.”<br/><br/>“I don’t see why <em>I</em> have to miss the party, Mama,” she said, complying nonetheless. Her mother rounded the bed to pull the covers to her chin. “Eloise will keep me awake with her sniffling, and I’ve been extra good the past few weeks like a grown up should be.”<br/><br/>“Perhaps had you been good the whole time - and not sneaking out as a lady should not be doing - I could have discussed a new arrangement with Papa. Be good like you should be all the time and maybe you can come to the next party.”<br/><br/>With any luck, there would be no next party. A dinner with Monsieur Madeleine had somehow been spun into a host party with Officers Tremblay and Chopin, two new recruits for the station, and Monsieur Madeleine. Javert could only offer gruff apologies to his wife and the half-explanation that he could not deny a superior order.<br/><br/>The conflict of Eloise’s ear infection did create an interesting scenario she rarely saw in her husband, however. So rarely did he volunteer to put the girls to bed. Whether or not it was a means to escape the dreadful pastime of idle conversation (Monsieur Madeleine, she had been told, was well versed in it), to see him want to play the doting father was as rare as it was endearing.<br/><br/>“What if …” Eloise’s words were cut off by another tearful sniffle. “What if my ear hurts too much, and I can’t fall ‘sleep?”<br/><br/>“You mean fall asleep,” she corrected. A hand reached over to brush the hair from her forehead, sticky not only from the rag but from the exertion of her ailment. “Give it some time. If it gets too bad, you may come out and find Papa or myself. We’ll only be a moment away.”<br/><br/>With two kisses each to her beloved children, Lucille stalked out to return to the kitchen, leaving them shrouded in near-darkness.<br/><br/>With the indecipherable passage of time, Eloise could hear the rhythmic opening and closing of the front door, and the soft chatter of voices growing in number - all men, aside from her mother. Through the wall, the voices all ran together, but she could pick out her father’s baritone register well. It was rare that night. She knew he was not privy to engaging in meaningless conversation.<br/><br/>It was harder to concentrate on sleep when they were all in the kitchen, right outside the girls’ bedroom. A whine of irritation elicited from her throat when she realized that between the party and her unending aching ear, she would not be getting much sleep.<br/><br/>“Be <em>quiet,”</em> Noel hissed. “This night is important for Papa.”<br/><br/>“Why is he throwing a party?” she whined again. “Papa doesn’t even like many people.”<br/><br/>“Because the mayor told him he wanted to meet all the police at our house, and Papa doesn’t like saying no to people more in charge than he is.”<br/><br/>“That doesn’t make <em>sense.”</em><br/><br/>“It doesn’t matter what makes sense and what doesn’t, Eloise,” Noel said with a huff. It was less irritation now feeding her words and more the onset of real tiredness. Her sister had spent the whole day crying in their room. They had to sleep eventually, whether it was induced by ear pain or not.<br/><br/>The voices outside their wall drifted in volume as Noel presumed they moved to the front parlor. After some indistinguishable amount of time in which her sister did not move nor make any more fussy sounds, Noel turned her back, content to a late sleep.<br/><br/>That was until the little sprite threw the covers off and made a rush for the door.<br/><br/>Noel sat up, her face burning. A sliver of light shone in the hallway where the kitchen was still lit with oil lamps and the candelabras on the living room walls. For a good minute, she deliberated staying behind, not wanting to risk more trouble being caught out of bed after hours.<br/><br/>The other side of the coin, she realized, was a possible reprimand for not watching her sister more closely.<br/><br/>With a grunt of agitation, Noel threw the covers off as well and embarked out to find her sister.<br/><br/>                    _____<br/><br/>Eloise hadn’t even realized she was crying until she reached a hand up to wipe the bleary sleep from her eyes, and the little fist came back with a wet streak. For a few moments she stood in the corner separating the parlor from the narrow, darkened hallway, and observed.<br/><br/>A thin fog of sweet-smelling smoke drifted through the dim light of the air like a dancing scarf moving with the wind of a ghostly dancer. The smell was very serene; she recognized it as her father’s tobacco pipe. The familiarity made her momentarily forget the ache in her ear.<br/><br/>She spotted her father among the small army of men in the parlor, alternatively sucking on his tobacco pipe and speaking to the young man to his left. Standing next to him, eating the chocolate after-dinner mints Noel always desired, was Officer Chopin, the aforementioned conversationalist. In a separate corner stood Inspector Tremblay with two newer, younger men Eloise did not recognize, but they wore the same navy blue uniforms as Papa.<br/><br/>Mama clung to Papa’s arm as they took up the couch. Her attention was caught by a gentleman sitting in Papa’s old armchair. Eloise had seen once before on a trip to the market - Monsieur Madeleine. Papa had told her of his importance; he had recently been appointed mayor of the town and was planning to reform the town’s natural order. Apparently the party was a chance to meet the police squad on a more personal level (Eloise knew her father surely disagreed with this, so she was still confused as to his acceptance of the activity).<br/><br/>A hand clapped down on Eloise’s shoulder from behind, eliciting a high shriek that made the nearby conversation falter. Against her will, she was spun around by her sister.<br/><br/><em>“You should not be out of bed!”</em> Noel hissed. “You’ll ruin the party.”<br/><br/>“Eloise, darling,” their mother called out, “are you alright?”<br/><br/>Before Noel could get another hold of her, Eloise found herself rushing through the parlor to her parents. Her mother was standing up, ready to receive the child.<br/><br/>Behind her, Noel shuffled in, looking rather humorless at the disregard of order. Lucille smiled in spite of herself, reminded of her stoic husband on patrol.<br/><br/><em>“Mama,”</em> Eloise said tearfully, “my ear is still throbbing.”<br/><br/>“Oh dear, oh dear,” she muttered, though not with enough worry to stress her daughter further. “Sit with Papa and I’ll make a remedy for you.”<br/><br/>Though Papa paid her little attention (the hand resting on her thigh was nice), just being able to sit on his lap and throw her arms around his neck should she desire set her mind at ease. She did not do the latter; she knew better than to make such a display in front of his workmates. Oh, how she wished they would just leave so she could receive a reciprocated hug and tender words!<br/><br/>“I can take her back to the room, Papa,” Noel was saying, standing next to the couch as if she’d been stationed there. “I’m sorry she broke the rules <em>again.”</em><br/><br/>“She’s quite alright, Noel. An ear ache is an ear ache.”<br/><br/>Noel fixed her sister with a sharp glare that made Eloise roll her eyes. For as much as Noel was a small clone of their mother, she could certainly pull off their father’s militant work look when something was out of order. Nevertheless, Noel did not move from her spot near the couch; she only folded her hands behind her back, firmly rooted to the spot.<br/><br/>“Well what have we here?” Monsieur Madeleine said, good nature ringing through every syllable. “A little Spanish Inquisition on your hands, Monsieur Javert?”<br/><br/>“My children,” he said sheepishly, tossing the briefest half-grin by way of apology. “I was not expecting them out of bed at this hour, but the youngest came down with an ear infection in the early morning.”<br/><br/>“Oh, a shame,” the Monsieur replied. At the mention of her title, her father’s hand stroked the hair back from her forehead in the same manner that her mother had done. She leaned into his touch, much like a cat. “When I was a boy, my mother remedied my ear aches with a warm compress from a bag of heated rice and grain. It may help you here.”<br/><br/>Monsieur Madeleine was by no means young looking; his face was carved and rift with wrinkles, and the hair on his head was grey even in the little light available to be able to see it. Somehow, though, the smile he cast to her made him seem much younger than he probably was. Whatever the case, she found herself smiling back at him.<br/><br/>“Does it help still?” she found herself asking. “Did it make it go away?”<br/><br/>“It does still help occasionally,” he confided. “My physician says I have more holes in my ear than a sieve.”<br/><br/>“What’s a sieve?”<br/><br/><em>“Eloise,”</em> Noel snapped, “don’t hog the conversation.”<br/><br/>“Noel!” their father barked. “Report to your post in the kitchen and <em>stop</em> antagonizing your sister.”<br/><br/>Eloise could not help but smile at this. Having taken on the position as the ‘good child,’ Noel rarely left room open for criticism of her daily display. To hear her being told off by their beloved father made her feel better. Even if she only had the upper hand for being sick, it was a win in her book.<br/><br/>With another glare, and a curt bow, Noel stalked off to the kitchen, her little feet padding against the ground with stern vigor.<br/><br/>Chopin watched the interaction with mounting amusement. Since their last encounter, it seemed the elder Javert girl not only discovered the foundations of her remorse, but elected now to mimic her father’s every move to get on his good side once more. Realizing he lost his conversationalist, he followed the girl’s trail to the kitchen.<br/><br/>“Noel, what are you still doing up?” Lucille asked, dropping a small vial of olive oil carefully into a watered stove pot.<br/><br/>“Papa told me to report to the kitchen.”<br/><br/>“Oh, he sent you on an assignment?”<br/><br/>“To help you, I presume.”<br/><br/>Noel, though rigid still with her hands once more behind her back, stayed wary of the iron stove. It burned the tip of her finger a few months earlier when she hadn’t realized Mama was making dinner. Since then she tried hard to avoid the kitchen, though the smell of baked chicken, potatoes, and glazed carrots was difficult to ignore.<br/><br/>“Well, Officer Javert,” she joked, “might you go grab the gauze from the bathroom? They’re under the sink, I believe.”<br/><br/>The name had an effect on her. Reaching one hand to her head in salute, Noel stalked off for the bathroom. Chopin, shadowed by the kitchen’s ill-fading light, swallowed the little bit of chocolate mint left as a smile threatened to crack his stony expression.<br/><br/>“Charming,” he said simply.<br/><br/>“If only she could find the right balance,” Lucille mused. She tested the water’s temperature with the tip of a dainty finger, not wanting the contents of the vial to burn Eloise’s eardrum and make an even bigger mess. “The spirit is there, but I do not want her to be as stoic as her father.”<br/><br/>“It’s better than what it was previously.”<br/><br/>“I wouldn’t say better. She should learn to act more like a child, just without the rebellious streak.”<br/><br/>“Oh, just wait until they reach fourteen or fifteen. I do not envy the first boy to be brought home to meet the Inspector.”<br/><br/>“Perhaps that’s why he wanted sons,” she mused. The tea towel, not yet of service, was being wrung through her hands. “What do you know of raising children, Rene? You’re only twenty-one yourself.”<br/><br/>“I’ve seen enough of these girls in my own nieces to know a thing or two about an unbreakable love for rebellion. Inspector Javert has told me once before about Noel being banished from dinner parties for throwing a spoonful of mashed potatoes at a chief inspector back in your old hometown. I wish I could’ve been there to see that.”<br/><br/>“Not as amusing at the time.”<br/><br/>“Does the Inspector find amusement in anything?”<br/><br/>She stopped. Of course he had to find amusement in something. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, her husband was as human as they come. He loved his family, fiercely and obsessively. That solidified her argument.<br/><br/>But the last time he laughed …<br/><br/>“He has laughed before, if that’s the answer you’re expecting.”<br/><br/>                    _____<br/><br/>It was a nice feeling, the rumble of her father’s baritone voice buzzing against her uninjured ear.<br/><br/>For some time Eloise sat in her father’s lap with a cloth pressed to her ear, having lost interest in the mayor once the conversation turned to the expectations of the police force and its handling of criminals. Though she wished they would talk about something else, it did dull her into a fitful, achy sleep. She would nod off for a few minutes before coming to at the stir of her father’s voice engaging the conversation.<br/><br/>“Try one of these, girl.”<br/><br/>She turned. A new officer she did not recognize, handsome though he was (his hair was the color of dimming embers, which she loved to see as their fireplace smoldered in the winter), held out his hand to her. In his palm was a wrapped candy. She hesitated. Though she did love sweets (and was never allowed to have them at this hour of the night), Papa had given her and her sister several talks about not speaking to strangers.<br/><br/>But this was a man of the law, she reasoned. He had the uniform to prove it.<br/><br/>Tentatively, she reached out and accepted the piece of candy, twirling the shiny orange wrapping in between her fingers.<br/><br/>The sleeve of his uniform rolled up to display, to her wide-eyed amazement, a drawing of a scantily-clad woman on his tricep. Papa said that only gang members and hoodlums and convicts had man-made markings on their skin, but this one was so pretty. Hesitantly, a little finger reached out to brush against a scar that was covered by the woman’s short red skirt.<br/><br/>“Watch this,” the man said.<br/><br/>When the man flexed his upper arm, and by extension his lower arm muscles moved, the woman appeared to be dancing. Eloise’s brows rose and a smile crossed her tired face. It was fascinating indeed. At least, until Papa’s hand found its way from her leg to her face, pushing her away from the sight and attaching firmly to his collarbone. His hand clasped over hers to press the cloth against her ear once more - a guise to get her to look away. Just briefly she caught him glaring at the officer with a very disapproving expression.<br/><br/>“Tomorrow morning, Vercher,” he said sternly. “We will have a talk.”<br/><br/>“Yes, Monsieur Javert.”<br/><br/>The combined warmth her father’s body heat and the rumble of his voice, along with the added relief of the olive oil to soothe her ear, allowed the mercy of sleep to shroud her in inviting obscurity.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I know canonically Javert and Madeleine meet like right before Madeleine reveals himself as Valjean, but I very much enjoy the idea of Javert unknowingly welcoming a convict into his home, around his wife and children, and he is none the wiser.</p><p>Also the Spanish Inquisition is a nod to Monty Python ^-^</p><p>I really like the idea of Javert's kids running circles around the precinct and using it as their little playground. Inspiration for them following him around town like a mama and her ducklings came from @ALWrite's adorable story, The Little Duckling, which I highly recommend. It's a canon divergence if Javert went to collect Cosette and she refused to let go of him.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Kind of getting Crowe!vert and Quast!vert intermixed in my head whenever I write certain lines for this story, so really this could be any Javert your reader mind desires.</p><p>This follows the same themes as all the other stories I've written thus far, but this one has a lot of emotional deft to me as it is a continuation of the first story I ever wrote. I wrote a (albeit very shitty) version of this same story when I was a very young teen going through a hard time, so I hold Javert and Eloise in higher regard than maybe any other characters I've written for.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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